Moon Puerto Rico (Moon Handbooks)

This has got to be one of the worst travel books I have ever purchased. The book is extremely vague. It is as though all the tourism companies and restaurants got together and had this book printed. Picture a typical travel magazine with a few informative articles on what to do and see, then filled with tons of advertising from companies that want your money. The book is good at telling you what, where, and when but does not elaborate on how to get there. If your an adventurous traveler like me and likes to find and do things the locals do or likes to do the tourist things without paying one of the local companies to guide you (they always want you to do and see things on there schedule) the book is worthless. The book tells you where the great beaches are and gives vague directions on how to get to them but doesn't give any mile (km in Puerto Rico) markers or landmark references. This a big problem because in Puerto Rico almost none of the streets are markerd once your out of the big cities and even in the cities your lucky to find a street name. I was looking for books by Andrew Doughty but he only does Hawaii. If you ever go to Hawaii looks for his "Revealed" series, he writes the most detailed travel book. On the other hand it gets two starts because it does tell you where the good stuff is and for those less adventurous it's a great reference guide to all the local tourism companies.

We just came back from PR yesterday and I must say the book was a wonderful guide during our vacation there. My husband spent much of his childhood in PR and at first he told me the book was unnecessary but he was the one who kept asking me to refer to the book. We spent two weeks in PR but we didn't follow the route written in the book...we went the opposite direction. We did make a complete circle of the Island using this book as our guide. The location of places were exactly as written in the book. We stayed at three different hotels in three different locations that are listed in the book and the phone number, the location and the review about the hotels were dead on. Last time we went to PR for family emergency, we stopped by to eat at a restaurant called La Boca in Salinas but this time we couldn't remember how we got there. We called family and friends and we were driving in circle. I told my husband that in the book most of the restaurants the writer reccomands are on the same road so we took 701 and there was our restaurant....the restaurant is not listed in the book but we love the seafood there. I wish I was eating the crab mofongo and a whole red snapper as we watch the fish swiming in the water. The information about getting to the port early to catch a ferry to Culebra island was true because it was sold out by the time we got there at 8am on Saturday. Better luck next time.

My fiancée and I recently took an incredible trip to Puerto Rico, and this guide was absolutely indispensable throughout. It has a helpful history of the island, plenty of restaurant listings (many different styles and costs, in all parts of PR), and a wide variety of ideas for exploring all that the island has to offer--from the rainforest to the nightclubs. Van Atten's writing is lucid, fun to read, and always well-informed. You really couldn't ask for more from a travel guide.

I went to Puerto Rico from July 12-16, 2007, and this book aided in making it the best vacation ever! I stayed at Wyndham's Rio Mar Beach Resort but went on daily excursions. All of the recommendations were very helpful and accurate. I went to many of the restaurants that were described in the guide book. This guide book includes excellent directions on how to get places, as well as awesome photographs. If you're planning a trip to Puerto Rico, it's definitely worth picking up a copy of this travel guide!

You could get a guide to the tourist destinations at the airport or tourist office free, but this book provides much more. I spent a week in PR in 2007 and almost everything I did was covered in this book, either because I read about it in the book or stumbled across it by accident, only to find it was already covered in Moon's book! Plenty of smart advice, one of the better travel guides I've ever used.